Higher Education in Prison: Equity and Justice for Formerly Incarcerated College Students

Author: Megan Klein, Oakton College

In July 2023, Pell Grants were once again made available to college students who are incarcerated. This marked a major shift in policy and is widely expected to contribute to the much-needed expansion of higher education in prison (HEP) programs. The data are clear: folks who are incarcerated and have access to higher education are much less likely to return to jail or prison after they are released than folks who do not. In fact, the five-year rate of recidivism drops by roughly forty-eight percent when people who are incarcerated have access to higher education while in jail or prison (Bozick et al. 403). These numbers are encouraging, especially given that a majority of folks who are currently incarcerated will eventually be released. They also indicate that the best way to be “tough on crime” might actually be by providing access to postsecondary education to those of the nearly 525,000 currently incarcerated individuals who are both academically eligible and interested in pursuing a college degree (Taber et al. 3).

As HEP programs expand over the coming years, so too will the number of students who are pursuing a degree behind bars and are released from prison before they complete their degree. Because HEP programs have primarily been built around the specific circumstances and needs of students who are incarcerated, those who are released from prison before earning their degrees face unique challenges and barriers that may undermine their persistence and completion. Students leaving prison, in some cases with little or no advance warning, face sudden existential challenges that can relegate a focus on studies to the back burner. Because degree completion is correlated with a lower rate of recidivism, the benefits of programs to support formerly incarcerated students in their pursuit of a college degree extend well beyond the students themselves. Arguably, the work being done at community colleges to support students from marginalized backgrounds can be used as a model for strengthening the resources HEP programs have to offer formerly incarcerated, emerging scholars pursuing degrees. In addition, I will suggest ways for equity-oriented foundations to partner with HEP programs to support this work.

The Faustian Bargain

One day after class at a maximum-security men’s prison, I was talking with some of my students about their upcoming research paper. There was a very brief window of time—after class discussion had ended but before the chaotic hollering from corrections officers demanding the students and faculty members leave the building—in which students could ask questions and get instant feedback. As I shared suggestions for additional work with the students, I remembered the myriad roles and responsibilities that my community college students juggle while completing their degrees. Ever conscious of their time constraints, I ended my advice by saying something to the effect of “if you have the time.” One student immediately responded, “Professor Klein, in here the one thing we do have is time,” and the others murmured in agreement. In that moment, his seemingly simple statement struck me as profoundly insightful: the unfortunate irony is that the inhumane conditions of incarceration mitigate against some of the structural barriers that inhibit students on the outside from successful college completion. To be clear, the successes of my students who are incarcerated are unequivocally the result of their intellect, resilience, and the work they do in pursuit of academic excellence despite the adversity of their circumstances. But I think there is an important lesson to be learned from one of my students who graduated with his bachelor’s degree in November 2023 and began law school in the fall of 2024. This student made an unimaginable decision about his college education: he elected not to go up for parole, despite his eligibility and decades of being confined in horrific conditions, because he wanted to ensure that he could complete his degree. He recognized that attempting to do so on the outside would present a set of challenges related to housing, transportation, health care, employment, familial responsibilities, and relationships, among other factors that might prove difficult to overcome. While we can and should celebrate this extraordinary student’s commitment to his education, we should also be deeply uncomfortable with the fact that he had to sacrifice his freedom in order to ensure he could achieve his educational goals. His story illustrates the desperate need to improve pathways to degree completion for students who are released from prison before they graduate.

Because of the 1994 crime bill and subsequent lack of federal and state funding, the number of people participating in college programming in prisons was cut in half, and the number of colleges offering degree programs fell precipitously (Sawyer). As HEP programs have begun to reemerge and expand across the United States, they offer exciting opportunities to students hungry to access the intergenerationally transformative power of higher education. In order to best support students who leave prison before they complete their degrees, HEP programs can draw inspiration from the effective work done at community colleges to support students from marginalized backgrounds. Foundations committed to equity and justice must be essential partners in the development of these resources.

The Workforce Equity Initiative as a Model for Supporting Student Success after Prison

Community colleges in the state of Illinois are now in their fifth year of funding the Workforce Equity Initiative (WEI), a program focused on connecting individuals from at-risk communities with accelerated training and certification programs in high-demand industries that pay significantly above the living wage (“Workforce Equity”). For qualified individuals, the WEI covers the cost of tuition and books for the duration of the program. For many people who have not experienced poverty, this sounds like a life-changing opportunity, and, indeed, it could be. But living in poverty without a safety net means that even a free, accelerated credential is likely out of reach. What makes the WEI program special is the recognition that covering the cost of tuition and books is not always enough to create the conditions necessary for students to succeed despite their desire to complete the training. The WEI program goes several steps further, providing financial support to students for transportation, childcare, and cost of living while they progress through the program. In fact, it provides a cost-of-living stipend directly to students to use as they see fit. This program also works to build relationships with local employers, creating a pipeline to high-quality employment for students who successfully complete the program. Since the program began, more than twelve thousand students across the state of Illinois have participated, and sixty-seven percent of those students have completed a credential. Nearly seventy percent of credential completers have found employment earning 130% more than the living wage of their communities (“Workforce Equity”). The WEI program recognizes that students cannot persist and thrive in education if their basic needs—and the needs of their families—are not met. The program meets students where they are and provides greater access to life-changing educational opportunities.

Similarly, for many college students who are incarcerated, access to free education is a transformative opportunity. My students routinely discuss how the prison’s college classrooms are humanizing and liberating spaces in an institution otherwise designed to dehumanize and demoralize them. For example, when asked about his community college professors, one student described them as “driven by a fully autonomous, liberation education model that enables and empowers students to effectively critically analyze themselves.” Despite the transformative power of educational spaces on the inside, students should not feel forced to choose between leaving prison as soon as they are eligible and completing their degree. Instead, we should learn from the wisdom of the Workforce Equity Initiative and recognize that when faced with the stress and precarity of life on the outside, many formerly incarcerated students need additional support to ensure degree completion.

Embedding Access and Equity into College Classrooms

In addition to innovative programming at the institutional level, many faculty members at community colleges have identified access and equity issues in their classrooms and built pedagogies to address these gaps. I have colleagues, for example, who have spent years developing assignments that serve the dual purpose of reinforcing course content and building college-success skills. Other colleagues are experts in the principles of universal design for learning, ensuring that their courses are accessible to students with learning, physical, and psychological disabilities. What these and other committed faculty members understand is that students are enmeshed in a diverse array of life circumstances and that these social determinants of educational success outside of the classroom matter a great deal to a student’s success inside of the classroom. They also recognize the agency they have in shaping their classroom spaces to account for such differences.

Recently I conducted qualitative research with college students who are incarcerated that centered on life after prison. Two themes emerged from this research that should surprise no one: students were counting down the days until their freedom while at the same time they expressed their anxieties about finding housing, employment, and health care and navigating the technological changes in society. What is perhaps more surprising given the pressing nature of addressing basic needs after leaving prison is that many students also expressed serious concerns about their mental health, both inside prison and after their release. They worry that the behaviors and attitudes necessary to survive prison could prove harmful to their success on the outside. One student who was released mid-program, for example, shared a powerful story about how excited he was to go to Subway for a steak sandwich after years of institutional food, only to find that he was overcome with panic and anxiety about how quickly things were moving on the outside. His need to maintain hypervigilance for years in a toxic prison environment left him mentally exhausted when surrounded by the fast-paced and unpredictable movement outside of prison. Another student shared this quote: “If you’re in here and you’re not depressed, something’s definitely wrong with you.” These examples encapsulate how my college students, both currently and formerly incarcerated, are in a kind of double jeopardy at the intersection of two well-documented mental health crises: one on college campuses and one in prisons.

Hearing these stories enabled me to get proximate to the on-the-ground realities of my students and think critically about how I and other faculty members can intentionally address student needs in our classrooms. As a result of this research, I was able to collaborate with students to design a series of workshops intended to support student well-being, academic resilience, and the development of techniques to more effectively manage the inherent stress and anxiety that is a part of daily life in prison and college. Embedding coping skills and techniques that help students recognize and manage stress can be a valuable practice both for students who are incarcerated and for those who are navigating reentry while finishing their degrees. After a workshop focused on reacting to academic feedback, a student approached me and asked if I would be interested in working with him on a workshop related to effective self-talk. He had been working on this skill on his own and thought it would be useful to share with his classmates. After several months of collaboration via correspondence, we co-facilitated a workshop based on curriculum that he developed. He was able to innovate and put his unique talents and perspectives to work once he realized that there was a need (and a space) for this type of curriculum.

Imagining the Future: Public-Private Partnerships

As these institutional and faculty-driven examples demonstrate, there are existing models that center access and equity to use as inspiration for supporting the success of college students who are released from prison before completing their degrees. Because data have shown how powerful a degree can be to reducing recidivism, it is essential that we continue to develop the infrastructure needed to support released students who want to persist in their education. Listening to the voices of students who are currently and formerly incarcerated enables us to see the problem from a different perspective. These students, like other students who face barriers in higher education, are experts on what makes degree completion difficult for them, and centering their stories enables policymakers to collaboratively craft solutions based on the actual problem and not just a series of assumptions.

A recent report by Ithaka S+R on college and community reentry partnerships noted that the reentry landscape is both “extremely fragmented” and highly localized given the varying needs and circumstances of folks leaving prison or jail (“Exploring the Landscape”). This same report also highlighted the fact that higher education institutions that have worked to build services and programming to support student needs can serve as a model for supporting the success of students who are formerly incarcerated. There is a clear need to develop partnerships between HEP programs and foundations and nonprofit organizations that center equity and access in their missions.

One example of such a partnership to ensure the success of students who are released from prison mid-program could be through the creation of stable, funded opportunities to support them. The well-known reentry stressors of finding and affording housing, food, health care, and transportation can become more urgent than degree completion even for the most committed and talented students. In addition, students who have spent years—or in some cases decades—in prison have likely not had opportunities to build a résumé that enables them to make use of their degree after graduation. Funding tied to a student’s progress toward their degree, such as through paid internships or scholar-in-residence positions, could provide both a much-needed financial lifeline for students and quality experience to add to their résumés. Jobs in prison typically pay between thirty and one hundred dollars a month, so most students leave prison with little to no financial safety net. Positions like these would make degree completion a full-time job in the immediate aftermath of release. Funding released students in this way keeps students from taking a break from school—and possibly not returning—and removes the stress of a job search. This would also address a concern that many formerly incarcerated students have expressed, which is that people want to hear their stories, but they are rarely compensated for the labor involved in sharing them. Such an official, paid position would also help support released students in meeting the employment requirements of parole, ensuring that they can focus on their studies. In addition, this intentional employment of students has the potential to significantly benefit institutions by creating “seats at the table” for voices that are too often excluded in higher education and whose inclusion can facilitate the crafting of effective and useful programming for students.

While stable financial support is unequivocally the first level in a post-prison hierarchy of needs, it is also clear that students would benefit from access to robust, tailored student services. At my community college, for example, we have student-care coordinators who assist those experiencing adversity while in school. When I have a student who shares their struggles with housing, with mental health, or with food insecurity, I can reach out to one of our student-care coordinators to work with the student to develop a plan for addressing their needs. I can connect the student to our counseling department, which provides free counseling for students who need it, to our Caring Closet, where students in need can easily order and pick up basic necessities, and to our Student Success Fund, which provides up to five hundred dollars per calendar year for students in need. Though five hundred dollars cannot fix everything, it can offer a slight reprieve for students experiencing a financial emergency; with the support of external funding agencies, such a program could be scaled to address issues like a required security deposit on an apartment for students released from prison.

My college also recognizes the value of a “warm handoff”: students are much more likely to get the support they need when someone directly connects them with a person who can help them as opposed to being given a list of names and contact information. All of these resources help to mitigate some of the circumstances that make performance inside the classroom difficult, especially for students from marginalized backgrounds. All of these practices stem from the value we and other community colleges place on “relationship-rich education” and being a “caring campus” (Felten and Lambert; Barnett and Cho). Such an approach could be a useful framework for building relationships across and between the many reentry providers.

Students completing their degrees after being released from years in prison face these challenges and more as they navigate the complicated physical and emotional terrain of reentry and reintegration. The aforementioned student services that already exist at many community colleges can serve as a model for developing resources tailored specifically to the needs of students who are released from prison. Given the stigma around incarceration, faculty and staff members working with students who are formerly incarcerated must have access to training and professional development opportunities that build awareness and adequately prepare them to support students and not cause additional harm. Ideally, released students would have a clear point person who can serve as a liaison for building their institutional knowledge and connecting them with avenues of support designed to facilitate their success. In our work with students released during the semester, for example, my colleagues and I have found that setting up consistent weekly or biweekly check-ins has been particularly effective. In addition to reviewing class material, which can be more difficult to access once students are released, these meetings are opportunities to hear from students about challenges they are facing and to celebrate their successes. Even in HEP programs where students are able to continue the program after release, they are now physically separated from their classmates and have to access classes in a new modality. For example, my students who have been released are able to log into classes using Zoom, but, given technology issues, their participation and engagement can be limited. In addition, release dates don’t seamlessly map to academic breaks, so there is often a major disruption when release happens mid-semester. Weekly one-on-one meetings are a great way to share out information and build rapport and trust, all essential to success in college. Private foundations can support the creation of positions in HEP programs that focus exclusively on supporting students who are released so that these opportunities are available to all affected students.

There is also a need to create training curricula for student-service providers in order to most effectively support students released from prison. Career and transfer centers are one example; they have the potential to provide transformative guidance to formerly incarcerated students. The Rising Scholars Network in California is an excellent example of work being done by community colleges in this space (“Rising Scholars”). One webinar they created in 2022 entitled “Career Advising for Applicants with Conviction Histories” is an example of the kind of programming that is particularly tailored to the unique needs of this community of students. Because reentry needs are highly localized, community colleges can serve as spaces where this kind of programming can be created and shared. Funding and resources for career centers to create programming on how to effectively search and apply for jobs, how to build a LinkedIn profile, how to prepare for an interview, and what to expect and how to stay resilient during the ups and downs of a job search are just a few examples of services that my students would benefit from during their reentry process. Students I have worked with, for example, struggled to discern which employers were background-friendly and consequently spent large amounts of time and energy applying for positions that they would never be considered for given their conviction history. Job searches are time intensive and grueling even in the best of circumstances, but exponentially more so when the job seeker is also overwhelmed with the technological changes that have occurred over the past ten to twenty years. A local career center that actively curates lists of and builds relationships with background-friendly employers in the area would be a tremendous resource for formerly incarcerated students.

Beyond career support, some students are likely to pursue graduate education, so providing opportunities for staff members to become experts on the unique challenges faced by students with felony convictions is one way to facilitate this process. For example, are there restrictions to licensure with a felony conviction in certain fields? What restrictions might students face when trying to access campus housing? What opportunities exist for sealing and expunging records? Having advisors on campus that are experts on the challenges students might face in applying to graduate school is an additional way to help support student persistence.

There have been tremendous strides in creating and expanding higher education programs in prisons across the United States. Students regularly describe such opportunities as humanizing and transformative, and the data on recidivism support such descriptions. As we move into the next phase of this critically important work, organizations committed to equity and justice can draw from the work being done at community colleges to build the infrastructure needed to support students who are released from prison in completing their degrees. Such partnerships will be key to ensuring that students not only survive reentry and complete their degrees but are empowered to fulfill their potential and contribute meaningfully to society.

This essay is dedicated to Michael Broadway, an unforgettable student whose impact was immeasurable and whose absence is deeply felt.

Works Cited

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